Blame 'State Schools' For The Horrible Economy

Here you probably thought our most elite
universities were to bame for the economic crisis. At Harvard
students were taught obsolete ideas about business management. At
Penn and
University of Chicago, students were ingrained with flawed
ideas about perfect, efficient markets. And of course, all of the
elite schools helped enforce an economic clubbiness, which soon
turned into inbredness.

If you were going to come up with a list of organizations whose
failures had done the most damage to the American economy in
recent years, you’d probably have to start with the Wall Street
firms and regulatory agencies that brought us the financial
crisis. From there, you might move on to Wall Street’s fellow
bailout recipients in Detroit, the once-Big Three.

But I would suggest that the list should also include a less
obvious nominee: public universities.

Wha!?! Seriously?

Yep, he's serious, and here's why

At its top levels, the American system of higher education
may be the best in the world. Yet in terms of its core mission —
turning teenagers into educated college graduates — much of the
system is simply failing.

Only 33 percent of the freshmen who enter the University of
Massachusetts, Boston, graduate within six years. Less than 41
percent graduate from the University of Montana, and 44 percent
from the University of New Mexico. The economist Mark Schneider
refers to colleges with such dropout rates as “failure
factories,” and they are the norm.

Our first thought was that the news confirmed what
John Carney argued yesterday -- that too many students are
going to four-year school, and that they should be going down
other avenues.

The academics studying this trend, who are clearly in the
pro-college camp, disagree. They cite a lack of emphasis on
graduation rates and an overemphasis on merely getting into
college. And they note that low-income students frequently don't
go to the best college they can get into (elite schools typically
do better with graduation rates), but instead opt to go to
cheaper, closer-to-home alternatives, where graduation rates are
lower.

Okay... But this still leaves some gigantic questions.
For example, the authors cite students who go to Eastern Michigan
University (39% graduation rate), but who could have gone to
University of Michigan (88% graduation rate). But UMich is
already at maximum capacity -- as are other elite schools -- so
for one thing, an influx of new applicants, would just displace
students, and we'd be back to ground zero. But beyond that, how
do we know that the the UMich graduation rate would stay constant
given an influx of students who used to go to Eastern Michigan?
That's a gigantic variable.

The economists looking at the question get at it a little bit.
There's some evidence that affordability mattesr, i.e., a
students ability to keep paying for an elite school once they've
gotten accepted. And schools that place a high emphasis on
graduation do seem to improve rates, somewhat.

But while the educators complain that high schools aren't doing
enough to prepare students for college, the goal of "improved
matriculation" sounds just as silly. Just as graduating from high
school doesn't automatically make you prepared for college,
graduating from college doesn't automatically make you ready for
the real world.

Given that so many students drop out of college, the burden of
proof still rests on those who insist that more people need to go
to college and that it's A Good Thing. Then we can talk about
increasing graduation rates.